The transition from Catholic to Atheist took about 20 years for me. I grew up as a Catholic, all my older relatives are Catholic. I have relatives that are nuns and priests. So naturally I would be brought up as a Catholic. I started out in a Catholic school where I was taught about Jesus and where we regularly went to church. I’ll admit that I do not really remember my early years but I can remember fully believing in the superstitions that I do not believe in today…god, Santa, the Easter bunny, Jesus and so on. As I grew up in this school we had our religious class where morals were instilled in us through stories of Jesus and how he lived. I was never really interested in these stories, but I took them as true anyways and always tried to act kind to people as I thought Jesus had. As I grew to the point of being about a 5th grader to an 8th grader, I still believed in god and the church but there was this growing cynical feeling. When I graduated from that elementary school, my ties to religion were pretty much severed. There was an opportunity for me to go to another catholic high school but I decided that I would join my local public HS. Throughout HS, going to church was never really necessary. There were points where I had to go to some youth Christian group to learn more about Catholicism in order to get my confirmation. Other than that I think the only other times where I went to church was on Christmas occasionally. I think because of the slack that the Catholic Church gives to its followers; it allows more people like me to easily transition to not believing. This is compared to another church, such as puritans, or those who teach the ENTIRE bible and take it literally. Catholic Church focuses more on Jesus and the gospels and leaves out the stories of the Old Testament. So it was at this point in HS, after I had been confirmed, that I started to not believe. It is kind of ironic that as soon as I am confirmed a Catholic I confirmed myself a non-believer. I rarely went to church after that, not even for Christmas. I have been to church for funerals and weddings, simply out of respect. Though, it wasn’t until I was about 20 years old that I started actually investigating why I do not believe. I did not know if there was anyone else like myself. As far as I knew my entire family believed, even if most of them showed a lack of interest in the church. The thing that actually got me was college and YouTube. College is the first place that I really started to think critically instead of learning passively. Critical thinking is the purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions or arguments. One of the ideas I would reflect on the most was religion. I knew I did not believe it, but I did not know why. YouTube helped out there a lot. The atheist base on YouTube today is huge. I first started watching atheist videos on a user’s cannel by the name of PiroNiro. On her channel there were clips of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett explaining why there are non-believers and not only why religion is not believable but why it is a detriment to society. These videos ultimately led me to other users on YouTube, like ThunderF00t, and a whole world of ideas of science and debunking theism. I watched videos on nearly every topic you can think of that pertains to religion. I could sit there all day and read about religion and watch videos on it.

So what is it that I actually believe in? Well I know what I do not believe in. I know I do not believe in the Christian god. First, I think science (evolution in particular) pretty much destroys the whole creationist argument. If you want to learn more about this argument I suggest you watch ThunderF00t’s video series called “Why People Laugh at Creationists”. I think the creationist argument is critical in determining the validity of the bible and I think evolution crushed any hope for the bible remaining a valid explanation for life as we know it. Second, I think that version of god is a psychopathic dick and if you study Christianity and then the arguments against it, you will understand why. Also if you read my conversation with Mr. Reed you will understand where I am coming from on this. You might say, well yes god might be a dick but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist and will not send you to hell for eternity. I say you are right. It can’t be fully proven untrue because it is unprovable, or unknowable. This is called being agnostic. Agnostic simply means something that is unknowable. So I consider myself an Agnostic Atheist, meaning I BELIEVE it to be true that there is no god but I know that this is unknowable. You can also be an Agnostic Theist, someone who BELIEVES there to be a god but knows that this is unknowable. I think there is no god because there is solid evidence against the claims that support a god, there is absolutely no evidence proving a god. There are books (the bible being one of them) supporting the idea of god, but all these books do are make claims. These claims have nothing to back them up. In opposition to that, for example evolution, makes claims and backs these claims up with thoroughly tested data. There has been nothing presented to me to make me believe in a god of any sorts. Thirdly, I can also assume that I do not believe in any other religions god. Though I haven’t done as much research on them as I have christianity, I have done research that has shown to me how similar all these religions are anyways and all the shared flaws that they have. Therefore, I can say with 100% certainty that I do not believe in ANY god. So then what is my answer for the ultimate question of why it is we exists? Well just like the explanation that god is the alpha and omega and has always existed and that he created the universe, I say that the universe was never created, it always was. Existence is made up of time, space, matter and energy and all of this is infinite and it is constantly transforming. This is a concept that is hard to grasp and as humans we are not meant to be able to grasp such things as “infinity”. Our brain looks for certain patters and it is limited. However, critical thinking allows for such concepts to exist. So what is my answer for what happens when we die? Well its pretty simple really. My body shuts down and starts to decompose and transform into something else. Should I be buried, some of my body would contribute as nutrients for the ground and perhaps other living plants growing on the ground. In reality we are just a bunch of atoms and our bodies are constantly transforming. When we die, our brains die and with that goes our thoughts and ideas; our consciousness. We are no longer human. We are no longer self-aware. We are transformed into a pile of atoms that are not aware of its existence. That is what makes this life so incredibly special. This conscious life is limited by how long we are alive for. Religion explains our consciousness lives on forever, therefore this life on earth is not really important, you should be focusing on the afterlife consciousness. This is cause for people to not appreciate this life. To me, if something has a definite beginning and a definite end, then there is much more value there than if it is around forever. I know it might be scary to think that your consciousness, the religious call it the soul, goes away with your body. Self-awareness is a beautiful thing, but what makes it so beautiful is that it is finite. I am content with knowing that my time using this tool called consciousness will not be wasted. I am going to use it to enjoy life and learn as much as I can and hopefully leave some sort of impact, however small it may be, before I die. My main gripe with religion is that it prevents people from using their minds in the way it should.

I now have a decent grasp on what is actually going on in the head of a believer. Usually the believer is just plain ignorant. They know barely anything about their own religion and they know even less about the philosophy of science. Then there are those who are very knowledgeable on their religion and it is their entire life. They have devoted everything to it and there is no time for anything else. Actually, if you look at Christianity, there is no reason for anything else. According to them, this life is simply a test by god to see if you are worthy of heaven or hell. All you have to do while spending you time here is obey and not sin. This leaves no room for critical thinking, progression of life and is why many of these people reject science. They are so invested in their religion emotionally and mentally that they are permanently close minded. They are also open to things they might consider immoral if they actually thought critically about it. I am so glad that I was not brain washed as a kid. What I mean by that is that religion was not forced upon me. It was not a part of daily life and it was never deemed critical that I dedicate my life to the church and god. Even so, there was some emotional attachment to my church. After spending 9 years at a Catholic school there were bound to be some good times with kind people. However, that emotional attachment was not enough to overcome my rationality. To MANY people out there this emotional bond, this mental delusion, is enough to make them a slave to the church. I have heard stories of people with this strong mental delusion overcoming their emotions and starting to think critically about their emotions and their actions and then ultimately not believing in their faith anymore. This is why I am speaking out against religion now. Before these stories, before I have come into contact with other atheists I would have just kept my mouth. Now I know that I might actually be able to help some of these people with what I consider a problem and take away a few more followers from a church motivated by greed and run with the power of manipulation. I know there are tons of people out there on the fence about what they believe as I was around the age of 18. I ask you people to start thinking critically, gain some more knowledge on what it is you think you might believe, see the counter position and THEN make your choice. You might say, well I don’t care about this enough to do all that. This is the reason the church flourishes and freethinkers are the minority. People are too lazy to do some active research. They are opposed to learning unless it will be of some benefit to them, such as learning about medicine because they hope to one day be a doctor and make lots of money. I say open yourself up to all the ideas and knowledge out there and start thinking critically about them. I can tell you, from someone who has done this, the feeling you get is far better than any imaginary authority ever gave to me. Open your mind to discussion and the world around you. You have one true freedom in this world and that is the freedom to think what you want to think. Don’t limit this freedom by choosing a lifestyle that leaves you close minded. We have this wonderful tool called the internet, where there are massive amounts of free flowing information. If you are interested in something, look it up. If there are 2 or more sides to an idea, become knowledgeable on all points of view and then make a decision on what you think. Regarding religion, if you consider yourself a Christian, actually sit down and read the bible and understand what it is saying. If you have read it and understand it and still consider yourself a Christian I would be shocked and you might be a person I would not like to associate myself with. However, just reading the bible may not be enough to enlighten you on why I am an atheist. If you are willing to be open minded you should discover the point of view as an atheist on religion. For me I found that information on YouTube. I would suggest watching clips from the show The Atheist Experience or videos from ThunderF00t. You can also search for my two favorite Atheist activists, Richard Dawkins and Charles Hitchens. There are also many movies on religion. A few of my favorites are Zeitgeist (there are 3 parts, one of them is on religion) and Jesus Camp. If any of you actually want to learn about Atheism and why we reject religion, below I will list hyperlinks to some of the information that I think is important. However, I think it is very important to familiarize yourself with the bible first before you get information on Atheism. If you don’t know shit about what the bible says or what your church teaches then you will not understand the arguments against it. My goal here is to kill ignorance. It is this form of stupidity that is killing this world. Here are some of the links:

The following is the writings of a man who might consider himself a “true follower of the bible” along with my replies to him. I actually appreciate this because it exposes what exactly goes on in some peoples minds and how the bible actually justifies these disgusting thoughts. This person can be compared to the people who think hurricane Katrina was sent by god to kill all the gays that were down there. Originally I had this man remain anonymous but I realized his letter to me was in a public note. So the mans name is Don Reed. I think he would consider himself a Puritan but I could be mistaken. This sect of christianity believes the bible should be followed fully and literally. To me, this is the most dangerous sect of christianity because there are many immoral teachings of the bible that other sects choose to ignore. I say ignore because you never hear about them in a catholic church and if you confront a catholic or any other christian(besides a puritan apparently) they will either deny what is in the bible or ignore the question entirely. This man does not ignore SOME of my questions (he does ignore most of them as you will see), but the responses I get from him are scary. I actually have more respect (which is veryyyy little) for this man than I have for someone who ignores these parts of the bible, because at least he is not blindly believing. However, what he believes in, in my opinion is a detriment to society and needs to be addressed. Following the discussion with Don is a discussion that I had with now former friend Cristi Evert. Originally Cristi posted a verse from the bible on her wall. It was a verse speaking of peace and love. It poped up in my news feed and I responded with a verse from the book of Proverbs that clearly promotes slavery. If she was going to make me read a verse from the book that I have so many problems with I was going to provide a verse that explained why I have such a problem with it. The “that was taken out of context” argument was quickly used and I was told by her friends that I didn’t HAVE to read her post (but I did, it was on my news feed….this IS a social networking site and I only just now realized I can hide peoples updates) and they couldn’t believe how I was offended by the verse. I explained to them that it is not the verse I was offended by but rather it is the book it came from. After that Don Reed decided to write a letter to me. I confronted Cristi with this discussion between me and Don and she stated that she fully agrees with Don and that everything he said was “perfect”. This discussion made me lose all respect for her and is the reason I am not keeping this private. Is this a dick move by me? Probably a little bit, but I don’t really care. Please read this entire thing fully before you make any generalized statements about it.

Don’s letter to me

Jake I have to apologize for the “professed Church” The professed Church only will tell you about the goodness of God and rarely you will hear about his wrath and judgement, sadly the professed Church blushes when they are confronted with those scriptures you presented on that webpage (http://www.evilbible.com/May.htm#May), they must be embarrassed.
Jake lets talk about Gods judgements which are always righteous. Jake my God sends 2 bears and kills 42 children who mocked his prophet (2Kings 2:24), I make no apology for that. My God sent his Kings and Judges to kill men woman and children of the wicked gentile nations (Joshua 6:21 1Samuel 15:3 to name a few), again I make no apologies. By the way those people were offering their children alive as BURNT Sacrifices to their false gods somewhat like the muslins do today (strapping bombs on their children to do their false god (allah) bidding because their false god doesn’t exist to do it for himself.
Jake my God sends pestilence, plaques (against his own people Israel) Numbers 11:33), fiery serpents again against his own people Israel (Numbers 21:6) and there are so many other things concerning Gods righteous judgements, I could talk about the flood God poured out in the days of Naoh and killed all that were on the Earth except for 8 people, I could talk about Gods judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah which killed all the people there except 3 Lot and his 2 daughters, I could go on and on but I’ll stop.
And yes God does command that wives be in subjection (subordinate) to their own husbands (Eph 5:22, Colo 3:18). The webpage you gave uses wives being in subjection to their own husbands and of course pulls that scripture right out of its contextual setting which ALSO tells the husband to LOVE THEIR WIVES AS CHRIST loved the Church and GAVE HIMSELF for it. Its typical your webpage picks scriptures and doesn’t give the whole text trying to substantiate its arguments. There was a day in this nation when woman did subject themselves to their own husbands and the men did love their wives and families, but that has all changed families are divided now the woman wears the pants in the home and the men are the wimps, the women are out to work and the children are dropped off at day cares (which can produce instability in a child) to have someone else raise them and we wonder why things are so out of whack in this nation. The home is broken down because men rebels against Gods word, men have a better idea. Even in the Church the woman have taken roles they Biblically are instructed not to take, it was to be the men who would be the elders, deacons, Pastors, overseers etc. Now we have woman taking on those roles and the Church is out of order and that is why you won’t hear the judgements of God talked about (God is made out to be like a gentle woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly). So Jake when mankind disobeys Gods precepts, homes are out of order as well as the Church. Gods a lot smarter than we are, he created us and knows what is right; sadly we think we know better.
Is there slavery in the scriptures?? My answer may get me in trouble but then again I really don’t care as I said before I will not apologies for the God I serve. YES slavery was “allowed” in the scriptures (Exodus 21:read it all) and it was carefully regulated, people were sold to be slaves and God had no problem with that. When we think of slavery as Americans we remember what the black man had to go through. Wicked men abused and mistreated the black man, and there were no regulations. Rarely do we in out history books hear about the slave owners who treated their slaves rightly we always want to paint the bad picture.

Also Jake do you have a job? Then you would be considered a slave to your boss (master). You have to show up at a certain time and work certain hours and your on his time to do whatever he tells you to do which makes you a slave but in modern terms you are called an employee.
Last of all Jake, yes children were put to death for disobeying parents and yes it was ordained of God, People were put to death for homosexual behaviour, adultery, murder, bestiality, and disobeying the Sabbath and all of this was , that’s right ordained of God. I think of an incident in Numbers chapter 15 in which a man was picking up a bundle of sticks on the Sabbath day and was brought before Moses and God told Moses to stone this guy and make sure all of Israel was there to see it. There was also an incident when the men of God were joyfully moving the Ark of God and they put it on a cart, the cart was rocked and the Ark began to come off the cart and a man named Uzzah tried to keep it from falling and GOD killed him. Why would a man die for picking up sticks and die for trying to keep the Ark of God from falling? Because they were in disobedience to Gods precepts, commandments, statutes….HIS WORD. Long before those incidents there was instructions given on how to carry the Ark and what and what not to do on the Sabbath day and in both incidents man disobeyed. Man had a better idea.
To sum it up Jake God is a Holy God and he calls us to be Holy as he is Holy. But we can see man refuses Gods ways and goes about and does it his own way (which is called iniquity, which is lawlessness, self will, doing whatever I think is right in my own eyes). The Bible says we have all sinned and come short of Gods glory (Holiness, his standards..the 10 commandments for example). We are all found guilty before God and all deserve to die and perish in hell. We are a self serving self pleasing people with little or no regard for Gods precepts as a matter of fact we mock his standards and anyone who stands up for his standards is looked at as a uneducated idiot, a heretic, a hatemonger, a homophobe and the list goes on.

Today Jake God is and has been offering grace through the death burial and resurrection of his son Jesus. Jesus in all reality took Gods wrath upon himself, that’s right God poured out his wrath on his own son (Isaiah 53:4, 10 read the whole chapter it’s awesome). Jesus took your place and mine on that cross, for our sins, we should have died, but Jesus took our place, Why? Because (John 3:16) God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus who paid your debt and mine. Jake God offers you forgiveness of your sins, John 3:16 goes on to say “that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life” The scriptures teach that it is by grace (Gods part) (a gift of God namely his son Jesus) through faith (our part) and it is of nothing we can work for so that no man can boast (Eph 2:8-9). Scripture says that if we confess with our mouth the LORD Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead that we will be saved, for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:9-11) (saved from the wrath that is coming on this Earth, the wrath that you saw in the scriptures above, and ultimately the lake that burns with fire and brimstone ..hell). God offers us forgiveness and eternal life , we can do one of 2 things accept his gift by calling on his name in surrender to his Lordship OR we can reject his gift which then we will eventually incur the wrath of God in a lake that burns with fire and brimstone, its your choice Jake. The Bible says you have a choice, life or death, blessings or cursings, CHOOSE LIFE (why would anyone in their right mind choose death and cursrings (yet I did choose that for the majority of my life until I came to know Jesus Christ))
Jake my God is a loving compassionate longsuffering merciful God and at the same time he is a COMSUMING FIRE (something you don’t hear much about today) (Hebrews 12:25-29). The choice is yours do you want to see his mercy and grace or his judgement in your life ..You choose.
In conclusion I make no apologies for the acts of my God in the Bible, Gods acts although I may not understand them all are ALWAYS righteous. Religious men today execute their false gods judgements in the name of their god, they kill people in the name of their god, as a Christian I understand that judgement belongs to God and God alone, he is very capable as we have seen to carry out his own judgements (vengeance is mine I WILL repay says the Lord). As a Christian I may or will have to suffer persecutions, beatings, imprisonments and even death for the name of Jesus sake as many of his people throughout the centuries have, but I am never to execute his judgement, he does that without my help.
Hebrews 10:31 says “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the LIVING GOD.

Jake Repent (change your thinking and line up with Gods precepts, turn from sin to God by calling on his name) or you will perish. God is looking for a broken and a contrite (a heart that has sorrow for his sin) heart. Come humbly to him today and receive life eternal. I will be praying for you Jake

MY REBUTTAL:
Well it is nice to hear from someone who actually does follow the bible in its entirety and not picking and choosing which parts they find moral and leaving that which they find immoral. I went to catholic school and to me it was a great place. The religious teachings offered to me there were of peace and love. I never saw the ugly side of religion, which you call god’s “wrath and judgement”. When I grew up and was able to access this information myself it was off putting. I realized how corrupt the church is. They are selling love and peace and that warm fuzzy feeling inside and leaving out the rest. It is a business and I don’t think business would be as good if people went to church and had to listen to stories of god killing women and children and allowing slavery. I find this to be utterly disturbing, disgusting and insanely hypocritical and I would assume that they would as well. Apparently you do not.
First, I would like to adress the murders of god (I can’t apologize for not capitalizing this word because, well, I don’t believe in god….how can I believe in a diety who has morals like killing children is ok if they mock him). You take the position that your god is the one TRUE god and that these other gods are “false” gods. So your justification for gods murdering of women and children is that it is ok because they just happen to be worshiping the wrong god. What if you happened to be born into a family that had no knowledge of christianity and they raised you as some of the children that were systematically murdered were in the bible? In actuality it is not “god” that was doing the murdering it was MEN. Men who justify their murders by saying it is ok because the voice in their head said it was ok. The same voice in their head that says “love thy enemy”. This is in total contradiction to your statement: “As a Christian I may or will have to suffer persecutions, beatings, imprisonments and even death for the name of Jesus sake as many of his people throughout the centuries have, but I am never to execute his judgement, he does that without my help.” You can see the contradictions here right?? The men who were sent to kill the other “wicked nations” were executing his judgements. God judged these people and he could have sent a plague I guess, as he has before supposedly, to kill them but in many cases he sent the sword of man. This is all according to your bible. I remember a commandment that says “thou shalt not kill”. Should it read “thou shalt not kill….unless you run it by me first and I approve of it. Oh and by the way, while murdering this enemy, love them at the same time”?

This is a book not written by a god. A god with such low self esteem that if someone mocks him, he feels the need to kill them. These behavioral traits should not be present in a god. Where they are present is in man. Man wrote the book as is evident by all the flaws, contradiction and hipocracy in it. This is where my problem stems from. From a book written by man that talks of love yet promotes hate, talks of mercy but promotes murder.

Ok, lets tackle the subordinate wives thing. Lets first define subordinate: placed in or occupying a lower class, rank, or position….inferior. Submissive to or to be controlled by authority. The website does pick its quotes out of context as many christians pick their quotes out of context, leaving these evil quotes behind. This website is simply filling in the gaps between the quotes that people already know of. You seem to agree with this verse that says women are subordinate to men. In this case it is a mans wife, but wives are women so I guess subordinate would apply to all women. It is extremely disturbing that people like yourself still believe this. I find it hard to believe that any woman could want a man who thinks such things. You say that unless gods template of what a family should be (man, subordinate obeying wife and obeying children). If they do not obey, well, god tells you to beat them with a rod. It is pretty explicit and can really only be taken literally. “Withhold not chastisement from a boy; if you beat him with a rod he will not die. Beat him with the rod, and you will save him from the nether world.” Proverbs 23:13. So you seem to be fine with all this and you are justifying it with the bible. This idea of submissive wives and children and if they disobey then it is ok to beat them into submission. I mean, what is a little beating with a rod when god KILLS other children for disobeying him, right? (I am thouroughly disgusted right now). This is all justified by a book. This, to me, is so blatantly immoral and contradictory to the other statements of the bible that even if I wanted to believe in this god, my reasoning would make that impossible. You argue that this family structure is healthy, where I find it to be anything but that. I have a sister who is married to a man. Both my sister and this man make about the same amount of money. My sister does not obey him fully, nor does he obey her fully. They work on their relationship and make choices together, logically and reasonably. My sister has 2 healthy beautiful daughters, who will grow up to be great women because of their parenting. The same can be said of gay parents who treat their relationships and children as equals. Now, picturing a family with a dictator as a father and subordinate family members beneath him does not seem as healthy to me. In this perfect family you have pictured in your mind women and children are slaves and if these slaves do not obey the father, it is ok to beat them until they do. Thankfully, society realized this is not good and lock fathers like this up in jail. I don’t understand how you can argue that locking people like this up is anything but the correct thing to do.

Next, onto slavery. Not really much else to say on this because again you seem to think slavery is fine as long as the slave obeys. If the slave obeys, then everything is cool…if not then, well, god tells you to beat or kill them. This is pretty similar to the wife and children idea. You know where I stand on that. You compare me working, and yes I do work as a blackjack dealer, as the same as being a slave. I go to work because I CHOOSE to. I do what they tell me to (my job) because I CHOOSE to. If I don’t do my job, at the very worst I am fired, not beaten or killed. I make money at this job which empowers me to do other things that I CHOOSE to do. At any point I can quit without consequence (other than I will have no more income). What I have over a slave is CHOICE. Another word for that is freedom. If slaves expressed a choice that was anything else than what theirmaster wanted, they got beaten into submission. Again, this is very similar to your family plan. What this does is empower the husband, the master and leaves no choice, no freedom to anyone that he sees as subordinate to him. Obey the mans word. If you disagree, you get the rod or in many cases, as in the olden days, the stone. You say that there was a time that slaves were treated rightly. Yes, treated rightly (if by rightly you mean feeding them and not beating them) IF they obeyed. How anyone can still believe in this and consider it to be moral is not understood by me. What I do understand is that justifying these thoughts with a book that so many people say they believe in (which most of whom never read) is very DANGEROUS. Dangerous to society and dangerous to humanity. This is why when I see a quote from this book, I lash out. This book and the behaviour that it can justify is disgusting to me.

You end your rant by trying to scare me with gods “CONSUMING FIRE”. I sir, will not be controlled by fear. I will not obey any authority that I can clearly see is immoral, unfair and in my mind, nonexistent. I will not obey out of FEAR. This fear has manipulated MANY people into believing in something that they otherwise would not. These fearful statement that the bible makes were written by men who needed a way to control people. What better way to promote your god than by offering people a promise of an eternity of burning if they don’t listen to you. It is the simple minded that fall into this trap of manipulation. Any rational, freethinking human being who is willing to take into account ALL of the teachings of the bible can see its flaws and the true nature behind the reason for its existence. It is just another tool for controlling people. It justifies the empowering of certain men and everyone else is beneath him. It was written by men with large egos and a hunger for power. This book is a masterpiece of manipulation. It promises everything good if you obey and everything bad if you disobey and has absolutely no tangible proof to back it up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This statement to many people is not true. People blindly and ignorantly believe in something that they don’t realize is actually enslaving them. If people want to act this way, it is fine by me, if it is kept private. When it becomes a public issue, when I see a quote from the bible from someone who I believe is ignorant to the other quotes of the bible, I have to act out. When I know that person does not believe they are subordinate, inferior, to men. When I know that person would not condone killing, beating or rapings. When I know that person when reading your ideals, and the justification in the bible behind those ideals, would be as disgusted as I am when reading it. It is these blind followers that I am trying to help. The people like yourself, who are not blind to everything in the bible, who know what the bible promotes and AGREES with it. People like yourself are what is preventing peace in this world. You and the muslim extremist terrorists are not very different. They justify their killing of christians (represented by americans) by saying we are infidels and their god is commanding them to kill us because we are not obeying their god. Your book says EXACTLY the same thing. To people like yourself, the killing of a nation of people of non-christians is just fine if it is done in the name of god. The same god who also says “thou shalt not kill”. WELL WHICH ONE IS IT GOD?? To me, an atheist, a self proclaimed peaceful atheist, does not believe in murder, rape or beating people in ANY situation. Reguardless of what anyone else believes or how they act. Maybe if the bible had ONLY the parts of peace and love and kindness in it, then MAYBE I might have taken it seriously. If that book existed and everyone followed it there would be world peace. However this bible explains that if people are not peaceful, or if they simply don’t agree with you, you need to be violent and kill them, which in turn makes you a violent, non-peaceful person. To sum this up, it is not god I have a problem with. I do not believe in a god of any sorts. Usually I don’t have a problem with people who DO believe in a god. The problem I have is with people who use god and his so called “word” (which is the word of men, men like you) to justify disgusting acts and ideals.

His Reply

Jake you need to go back and reread what I have said. You misquoted me in a number of areas and took things out of context. When dealing with the women in submission to men you mentioned nothing about the man loving his wife as Christ loves the Church statement. When a man loves his wife as Christ loves the Church the woman has no problem submitting to her husband because she is respected by her husband and highly esteem by her husband and realizes she is protected by his love for her. I think because you have a lack of understanding you think that the scriptures suggests that a man rules his home with an iron fist which is totally contrary to what Ephesians and Colossians teach. Concerning not sparing the rod on children, right a way your mind goes to abusing a child. The scripture doesn’t teach you to abuse your child but give them the rod of correction and it always done out of love, When I grew up I was given the rod of correction and I had a reverence for my father, I was taught REPECT (I had a good fear for my father, I loved him and respected him). Now a day we give kids time outs (yeah that works real well) and what we have now is a bunch of mouthy disrespectful kids running around who don’t fear authority, they curse out their parents etc. I’ll stick to the Bible way thank you since I have seen the results of mans wisdom.
Concerning slavery I don’t claim to understand every aspect of it but this I do know God allowed it and as I said there were regulations regarding it, but I bet you didn’t search and read the scriptures to find out what they are. I however did like your argument on slavery about CHOICE. You are right the slave didn’t have a choice whereas you and I have one in our jobs. Are Christians today supposed to have slaves? No under the law it was sanctioned by a Holy and Just God, under grace there is no use for it. Jake there are many slaves in the world today, you happen to be one of them, you are a slave to sin and there is no way out for you except the way of the Cross. Sin will own you till the day you die unless you repent and if you choose not to repent you will perish. You are so proud of your intellect you seem to know more than the God who created you Jake. Where were you when he set the stars in the sky? Where were you when he created the heavens and the Earth, do you really think I would trust in your finite wisdom over his wisdom? No way. I played that game for many years of my life living for me thinking I had all the answers. Jake you are so proud and that will be the very thing that will destroy you unless you repent. In Romans 1 it talks of people who profess themselves to be wise and in reality are really fools (the fool has said in their heart there is no God). Jake humble yourself.

Here is the real reason that you hate the word of God quoted from the God of the Word Jesus my Lord and saviour
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:19 and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and MEN LOVED DARKNESS rather than light, because their DEEDS WERE EVIL.
John 3:20 for every one that doeth evil HATES the light (that explains why you get your nose out of joint when someone quotes a scripture), neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
Jake light has come and you like your darkness, so your only recourse is to attack the God of the Word by attacking the word of God to your own destruction (Proverbs 13:13 says “he who despises the word will be destroyed”.

I will end with this again by saying I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR THE WORD OF GOD. Repent or you will perish, you are about to see the wrath of God coming on this Earth like you have never known before and you and all the wise men like you won’t be able to do a thing about it. God is a consuming fire to those who won’t repent. It’s your choice Jake remain in your sin or repent. I have laid out Gods salvation plan in my previous note and the choice is yours, I will no longer respond concerning this matter. If you don’t like people posting scriptures (and don’t play ignorant, you have been on facebook long enough to know how to hide a person so you don’t have to see their posts) on facebook HIDE THEM.
As for me the discussion is over we could go on all day but because of the hardness of your heart to Gods word it would prove unprofitable.

My Reply

Ok so you have confirmed again that you think the role of women is to marry a husband and be submissive to him. Whether the man loves her or not, this idea disgusts me. It suggest women do not have any other worth than to make babies and listen to their husbands. “Should the husband want a sandwich the woman shall maketh said sandwich and all shall be good. If the wife deny thy a sandwich beat her with ‘the rod of correction'”. Maybe this should be added into the bible?

Though it is good to know that you do not believe in beating children or wives. However, the scriptures make it very clear that god would not be upset if such a thing occured. How can he be, when he himself killed women and children? You say you had respect for your father out of a great FEAR of him. Perhaps respect from the child should be earned, not forced through fear. You use that word fear again in the next line saying kids now do not “fear” authority. What is wrong with that? People should not be motivated by fear. Knowledge of the consequences of certain actions, like murdering someone will put you in jail forever, is all that is needed to help prevent murders. This idea of fearing authority is training people to be slaves to it. It trains them to just do whatever authority says when there are MANY times that authority (whether it be the government, the father of a family or god) is wrong. This is what promotes progression towards better living. And this is how teachings from the bible stifle this progression. Since we talked about slavery, lets use that example. Once, slavery was allowed, politically. It was justified by the bible, the government and economically, however, in my opinion not morally. If fear had its way there wouldn’t have been anyone who stood up against the idea of slavery. Eventually through the challenging of authority and a massive war, slavery was abolished. Your book still promotes slavery. According to you god wrote that book and it is perfect. Or is the bible like the constitution, which can be amended to better suit the time we are living in? Should we cross out the verses in the bible that speaks of slaves? Let me ask you this, if slavery existed today and the master loved his slaves and the slaves obeyed his masters, would you be ok with this? Let me also ask you, if one of your children (if you have any, i don’t know) talked back to you and swore at you, would you consider hitting them?

Next, I don’t think I am smarter than god. I think there is NO GOD. Do I think I am smarter than you? Well I guess thats what you define smart as. If you define that as knowledge then what type of knowledge are we talking about. If it is knowledge on the scripture then you got me sir. You probably have memorized way more than I have. However, I know enough to know that it is not for me. Instead I focus my brain and my energy on more useful things in life, like enjoying it and trying to figure out how this crazy complex world works. You knowledge on how the world works is very simple minded….well god made it that way. Read some books other than the bible and maybe you will have a change of heart. Even if you don’t agree with the information in other books, at least subject yourself to that information so you don’t speak out of pure ignorance.

Please explain to me how I am a slave to sin (even though sin is a made up word meaning whatever god doesn’t want you to do). Is it because I deny your god? Is it because I don’t honor the sabbath? Is it because I words like “shit” and “fuck” are part of my vocabulary? I’m gonna be honest, I always have been more of a nightime person. Perhaps that is me going towards the darkside. I don’t limit what I can do in life by what is written in a book full of hipocrisy and contradiction. See that is what makes me free. I choose to do whatever I want, you are limited. I choose to follow most laws because I think there are logical and moral reasons behind them. I choose to follow other laws because the consequences make them not worth breaking. If I have a problem with certain laws, I can choose to run for office and try and make a difference that way or elect official who I think support my ideas. This type of authority is called a democracy. The people have the word. Your type of authority (god) is a dictator and the “government” of Christianity is totalitarian. Follow what I say regardless of whether I say love eachother or kill eachother, just do what I say or you will burn forever. I am sorry, I choose the freethinking democracy, not the close-minded dictatorship.

His reply

Okay then you made your choice, Know this though “At the name of Jesus your knee WILL bow and your tongue WILL confess to the glory of God (that you reject) that Jesus Christ is Lord. This discussion is over, you are now accountable for what you have heard.

I did not and will not reply to this man after this. I was looking for an actual discussion, but all I keep getting from his side is threats of jesus coming back and forcing me to obey or me being sent to a fiery eternity. Notice how he did not address any of what I said in my second reply to him. He just played it off and threatened me. You all know me, right? I consider myself a good person. Lets say for arguments sake that this version of god does exist. Do you think its alright if I am sent to hell simply for not obeying or acknowledging him even if I am a good person throughout my entire life? The bible says it will happen. Do you want to worship a god who will do that to me and to all the other kind and innocent atheists of the world…to all the homosexuals…to all the believes of other religions….maybe even to the believer of the wrong version of chirstianity? Perhaps god prefers you to worship him the way a catholic would. Fuck you other christians, you obeyed me the wrong way, off to hell you go. A god who never revealed himself to me in any physical way, but wanted me to believe in him through a book like the bible, with all its bullshit. If such a fate should come of me, which it is not because god doesn’t exist, I would look jesus or god himself (whichever form he decides to take that day) straight in the eye and say “FUCK YOU, SEND ME TO HELL”. I would rather go there then spend eternity with that asshole. I am not going to ruin my 1 conscious life being a slave of religion. I hope none of you are. I’ll pray for you if you are : )

Mine and Cristi’s Conversation

Me: We should sit down and have a chat. You free after volleyball?

Cristi: Whats there to talk about?

Me: Your friend Mr. Reed. Maybe you should read mine and his discussion if you haven’t already.

Cristi: I have read it and I believe all the things that he has said.

Me: So you think its cool that god allowed slavery, committed genocides and that women are subordinate to men? Because as you read that’s what he believes. Oh and that I deserve to spend an eternity in fire? Do you think I deserve that?

Cristi: God lays specific guidelines for people to follow and if they do not obey, seek forgiveness or believe then they will spend eternity with satan. There is no point for us to discuss anything because you know my point of view, you know what the bible says, you read a lot of it out of context and im not here to judge but until your heart is softened and you are able to actually hear what me or don or anyone is saying, rather than just listening to it then I will talk. Until then i need to learn more of the scripture myself because i need full understanding in order to talk to people about it.

Me: Well I have gone back and read everything mr reed asked me to and there is no denying that the bible and your god allows slavery, genocide and that a man is superior and a woman is inferior. Mr reed confirms that in his letter. He says that the bible says it and that he agrees with it. How can you possibly agree too? It is not out of context. There are whole passages dedicated on telling you how to raise a slave. Go read for yourself. Coming from someone who believes as you do I would have thought you would have read the entire bible already. I hear what don is saying. I understand it fully. It is very clear what he believes and to me it is disgusting.

Crisit: I don’t have to answer to you. Ill see you at volleyball tonight. Thank goodness its our last game.

Me: All I want is a discussion. Don avoided my questions and so are you. One I would like to ask you: do you think you as a woman is subordinate to a man? A man like a future husband. Are you going to avoid this question?

Cristi: Well your way of life has nothing to offer me and I honestly don’t care what you have to say and this conversation is over. Don explained everything perfectly to you, its repetitious at this point. This conversation is o v e r.

Me: If you agree with that man then I am sorry we cannot be friends. I really am sorry for this. I suggest you study your beliefs a little more.

Cristi: Haha, such a little boy. After tonights game there will be no talking or seeing eachother so don’t worry.

Me: I refuse to be friends with someone who thinks I should be on fire for eternity. How is this immature? And I think it is obvious that I will not be playing.

Cristi: Well I am not going to stop you if you want to play, its the last game. So do what you want. It doesn’t matter to me.

Me: No thanks. Don’t want to be around someone who thinks such horrible things about me.

Cristi: Boo hoo. cya

End of conversation

As you can see Cristi also believes the things that Don has said, even though she says she needs to go back and read it to fully understand it before we can discuss it. How can someone believe in something so passionately without fully understanding it? This, ladies and gentlemen, is called ignorance. It is something that Don Reed is not. He understands and agrees, she doesn’t understand and agrees. All I was trying to do was to help her understand HER OWN beliefs. I would have thought that if she actually realized what it is that she believes that she might think differently. Apparently, she is willing to fully agree with something that she doesn’t understand or probably hasn’t even read yet. This I have no respect for. She also, as Don did, avoided my questions and then called me a little boy.

I would also like to address this”taken out of context” argument. In this particular situation the quotes from the bible I choose to use to confront people with are disturbing. The context surrounding these disturbing quotes are ideas of love and peace, usually. For example, you can beat the slave if he should disobey but you must love him at the same time. Also, women are subordinate and should be submissive to a man, but the man should love the woman. Statements like this is like saying “shoot me in the head, but do it with a bullet of love”. Also, there are entire books of the old testament describing the genocides on the other “wicked” cultures of the world. Or who can forget the supposed flooding of the entire world killing pretty much everyone. There is not context around these stories that can soften them up. Don apparently has no apology for these actions and his reason is it was in the name of god. Gods explanation for these mass murders is that they were not obeying me. They were different or in other words, not ideal, so they were all murdered. Similar to the holocaust or any other genocide that has taken place in this world. What makes Hitler wrong but god right? These are questions I have and I can’t seem to get any direct answers. All I get is rhetorical bull shit and threats. To the people reading this (congratulations on getting this far, there are many words here and I realize how NOT entertaining this is) who consider themselves religious, specifically christians. Please take a look at what these puritans believe, because they are actually following the bible, as good christians are supposed to. Do not call yourself a christian if you can’t believe in the stuff that disturbs me about the bible. Your entire religion is based on what is in that book and if you can’t agree with the book then why be a part of the religion? All I ask is that you do some active research before you make certain claims instead of just regurgitating what you have been told. If you find yourself agreeing with what Don and Cristi are saying and you also think I am going to hell, well then you can go fuck yourselves and please tell me that you think this way so I can avoid talking to you again. Thank you for reading and again, don’t make generalized comment if all you did was read a single part of this or just skimmed through it.